Refraction of Light
by Shadow Logic
Summary: Things aren't what they appear. Why Coraline returns to her own world in the mornings, how Other Wybie overcame Other Mother's orders, and other plothole fillers.
1. Persephone

_or ¿How does Coraline appear back in her world after going to sleep?_

* * *

As soon as Coraline's breathing became slow and even, The Mother began to make gestures at him. Well, now why would she do that?

"Is it Put Away time yet?" No answer to his whisper, only more gestures. Well, no point waking up the tired little bundle by chattering right there, in her room. Best to leave.

He glanced back, fondly, at the little lump on the bed.

But the Mother's gestures were becoming more urgent, more commanding, and so Other Father clambered to his feet and padded quickly to the door. He closed it carefully, and was grateful for the well-oiled hinges.

"What's wrong, Mother? Too much cooking? All tuckered out for the night? Time to recharge?"

Mother had been very accommodating of his questions when he'd first Come Alive. He wondered if the True Him was that way, if that's how she'd been ready for the thousand-and one-things he'd said just after his mouth had been properly sewed in.

He was her creation, she'd told him then, a loving father to the girl known as Coraline Jones, who'd he'd listen to and spoil, as her real family did not often do. He would also be the Mother's close companion in bringing Coraline over to stay, to be loved and beloved by the Mother forever. In exchange, Coraline would feed and strengthen Mother with her love.

 _My strength is your strength_ , Mother had told him. _With Coraline here, you and I, and all the others, we'll all live long and healthy for a long time_.

Mother looked distant, deaf to his words – which, admittedly, she usually did. Only the presence of the little girl truly did anything to anchor her to the present.

She turned without warning and began making her way down the stairs. Other Father scrambled after her a minute later, a little behind on his cue.

"You see, there are certain rules surrounding this…game." It was also a habit of Mother's to speak as if they'd been talking all the while. Other Father mentally backtracked, trying to find his footing in the conversation – did she mean rules for getting out of the room? No…Coraline's first night here? No…

"I could have offered Coraline the buttons this very night, you see, but I didn't."

Oh, so that's what it was about. "Well that wouldn't have been right. The fun's only just begun! She hasn't even visited the circus yet. Or seen the garden! Boy, will she ever go bananas over that one."

"Ah…that's…part of the reason." Mother went to stand by the door of the piano room, an amused chuckle following in her wake. Another cue. Other Father pondered for another too-long second before rushing forward to open the door. He did remember to stand aside and hold it, letting Mother walk in first.

This was standard Putting Away time: the time when Mother put her creations away, before going away to rest herself, and replenish all their strengths. His post for Putting Away time was at his piano stool. No need for a big clunky bed.

Unlike other times though, Mother didn't leave once he was comfortably seated. She walked around the room, pondering. A long time seemed to pass, her measured steps tippy-tapping in the silence.

"You see…come the morning of her own world, Coraline will be gone."

Other Father had been slowly fading by that time. "What?" Ah, Coraline. "Ohhhh…you mean she won't be here when she wakes up?"

"No." There was a hint of frustrated eagerness…or more of a truncated joy. Perhaps both were the same in a way, and which was which didn't matter. "She's still belongs to that world, the world above. She'll vanish out of here by sunrise. Pulled up by invisible threads."

"Ohhh…well, that's too bad." Really, it was.

"But I _am_ working hard. To break the Upper World's claim on her, I need her to eat of our food three times."

Sometimes, it was as if Mother really didn't care for his actual words. The upside was that he could often say anything at all. "Ooooh. Magic number three."

"Oh yes. Eating of our food makes her more like us…as if the food were part of an acceptance of us, every time she eats it, she is more here than there."

"But why three?"

"It has to be three. It makes the transition complete." When she spoke like that, her words became measured, carefully enunciated like a lesson. "Three is the complete number…it has a beginning, a middle, an end. To have her eat three full meals breaks the threads tying her to the Upper World. Any less will make it incomplete…I'd have to share her. Let her…go."

Out from the darkness came the tip-tip-tap of fingernails. "And that, I cannot stand. I need that dealt with, before the buttons."

Measured steps made their way to the door. Now this cue, he knew: the conversation was finished.

As Mother tippy-tapped out the room, the doorway invisible with the lights now all off, Other Father thought he could hear a faint muttering of "pomegranate seeds."


	2. The Life and Times of Other Wybie, p1

_Or what the Beldam saw that led to the creation of Other Wybie._

* * *

Seated behind the worktable of her grand sewing room beneath The House, The Beldam fingered the scraps of fabric before her, and pondered.

A long bolt of black waterproof fabric, shiny and thick, even to the prod of her wedge point needles. A length of white reflective plastic that promised to be quite unkind to her scissors. Four balls of yarn, one burnt umber, one seal brown, one sepia, and one chocolate brown.

One sharp finger agilely edged the sepia ball out from amidst its comrades. A prod and a little wrist-flick made the ball spin idly as the Beldam's thoughts turned as well…

Should she even bother?

Eyes flicked upwards. There, on the gold-framed little mirror that hung above the worktable, the little Coraline doll stared out from Coraline's bedroom window, looking down at two figures standing in the middle of the rolling, knee high mist. Canary yellow and Egyptian blue, sepia-brown and black bobbed amidst the marshmallow white waves.

"Well…" a wave of sharp-needle hands shifted the scene, the focus now level with the colorful blots, as if standing next to them: Wybie Lovat waved a length of chiffon yellow around, dangerously close to Coraline's distinctly unamused face. A flicker of worn black bobbed amidst the foggy waves as That Thing lay witness to the scene as well, and a burst of maroon-lined, black anger curled into a ball at the Beldam's breast.

That Thing…

A breath of air to her lungs cooled her insides back to oxblood red, even and pliant, good for thinking thoughts and plotting plans.

If the Beldam were to make her decision based simply on the scene playing out before her at that moment, it would have been easy: the ideal world of Coraline Jones would contain no Wybie Lovat. By her own admission, Coraline had already boxed him in neatly along with her parents as a non-listener, which would be upsetting to encounter here. His chatter would also run interference to the delicate knitwork of her Wonders, blinding Coraline to the full effect of their charms.

And that chatter of his…

Wybie was a skeptic. For all she knew, the Living Sand might carry the trait over to any double of his that she created.

That chatter. That endless, prodding chatter...

The Beldam's mood began to scale higher up the spectrum. The chatter engaged Coraline far too much with the real world, awash as it was in gainsboro and slate gray, coaxing out begrudging roots in her little Lily of the Valley, anchoring her to its earth and its firm, unreachable reality.

Away from _her_.

Really, Wybie Lovat was not to be suffered to wreak any sort of havoc into her -

Ah…but what was that?

Wybie's already slouched back had just a little more curve, his eyes were a little more skittish than when he talked to his grandmother (The Beldam remembered, how her doll had languished upon that shelf in that old room, magenta wallpaper buried beneath the ash gray to create a pale, sickly pink, fitting to a place like that, a mausoleum to a lost sister), to the few adults in his life…Coraline could well be the only girl he'd ever really met but-

Oh, then that was the game? The Beldam's fingers tapped a rhythm upon the scarred tabletop, _games, oh games…_

Puppy love. That was it. Tender, salmon-flesh pink puppy love, brought on by her precious little girl's flagrant contrasts. The only splotch of color in a world of monochrome, blurred in the rain.

Hmmm…

Perhaps the boy wouldn't be such a waste of the Living Sand after all. With the proper adjustment to that chatter…

Needlepoints sank into the black waterproof fabric with relish.

* * *

"Hello, Other Wybie."

Other Wybie smiled at her, with just a hint of a confusion, something that tasted new, like harlequin green silk, as she cut the thread, freeing her needle and the excess from the final stitch.

He'd never made a sound, even as she'd sewn his eyes into his face, painful procedure – and now, with all the work done, he never would.

"Such a wonder, being alive, is it not?"

Other Wybie's smile became a little longer (not wider, a wider line wasn't possible with a mouth not made to move) moving to clasp his hands in front of himself, like a good little boy ought to in front of his elders.

Only she hadn't yet put them together, so he was crossing the empty sleeves of his trench coat instead. He radiated a good-natured gladness at her question, an off-pistachio green hue to its friendly mildness.

"I'm glad to know that. Now…what _shall_ we do about Coraline?"

Other Wybie's smile was suddenly very peculiar indeed – every line is his new burlap body became alert, and his emotions were the color of limes in the summer. A glad color, a color full of energy and wonder.

"I see. Well, that's perfect," and here the Beldam touched the side of his face kindly, because even her creations were to be subdued by her web if they were to be truly hers, "because you see, I've made you _for_ her."

Other Wybie's face went slack with surprise, sepia yarn eyebrows arched high over his button eyes. Surprised joy, hot pink and cyan and sunshine yellow, wonder and gratefulness, like confetti at a parade.

"I am _so very_ glad. We'll go over the finer needlework later, once I'm done with the pumpkin. For now, tell me my little darling: what are you supposed to do about Coraline?

The Beldam was surprised at how clear and near tangible the emotion that Other Wybie radiated towards her at that moment was. It wasn't a color, or an impression: it had the disturbing monochrome solidity of honestly spoken words.

 _I will live for her._


	3. The Life and Times of Other Wybie, p2

_Or 'where Other Wybie found it in himself to oppose the Beldam'_

* * *

As the Beldam's footsteps ring louder and louder outside the living room, as the Living Sand that he's crafted from begins melting into nothing, Other Wybie does not falter.

He has done right by him. He has, in a way, gone above and beyond the call of duty as it was ingrained into his stitching from the moment of his creation.

For this, he will not die smiling.

* * *

His first memories are a combination of loud noises, bright sensations and simple, clear-cut emotions.

He remembers mixed awe and pain from when the Beldam stitched on his eyes and the tiny sting of her needle and watching the little patches of black cloth suddenly become _his_ , his hands, mobile and distinctly his own.

He knows he has to act a certain way towards the Father and Mr. Bobinsky and Misses Spink and Forcible. He feels a kinship to them. They are simple, and easy.

But there's anticipation in him as he stands outside The House as the clinking of forks and the smell of waffles and honey and sausage emanates out towards him in waves.

And when the door finally opens, when he first sets eyes on Coraline Jones, he _knows_.

He's never seen her before, but it's as if his feelings always knew her. Her joy makes his joy grow brighter, like the colorful balloons in Other Bobinsky's attic, and he can't seem to wait to get just another dose of the giggles and awed looks. He's not made to talk, but really, does it matter? Wouldn't the words get in the way of listening to just one more of Coraline Jones' vivid exclamations of joy?

But the balloons would sometime pop, too.

The balloons could be pumped too full of helium for their thin little skins, and with a sharp CLACK they'd be gone. The pieces of rubber that remain are so unlike the balloons, he'd think then – so dull, so small, where balloons were supposed to be so bright, so jolly.

So sad, to see them go like that.

And that's how he feels, as he hands Coraline over to the Beldam that night, the night she is supposed to choose. And suddenly his rigid smile is collapsing, like the stitches at the corners of his lips have weights, and they may well have, with his heart feeling so heavy.

And he knows the Beldam knows, the moment she closes the door on his drooping face, when she'd let him go up and watch Coraline fall asleep wih Other Father and herself just the night before.

* * *

"Whatever shall I do with you, Other Wybie? Hm?"

They're down in the Sewing Room, where nobody goes without the Beldam's consent. There aren't many chairs here, but one of them can move, and its arms are wrapped around his wrists like creeping vines.

"I don't like this face you're making. It seems I can't trust you to put on another one before Coraline wakes up again." The Beldam was still in her Mother disguise, and all the more frightening for it, because thinking of who she really looked like and how very different she could be, just on a whim, reminded him that she was very, very powerful. Other Wybie felt a selfless kind of fear, one that was all for Coraline, because she still didn't know.

He didn't fear for himself. He knew what'd be happening to him now.

The Beldam's voice was even and sweet. Calm, even. She might have been whispering kind nothings to a child about to fall asleep. "You will not be seeing her again. Even if she doesn't accept her buttons tonight, I'm afraid you've been a heaping handful, and that does not sit well with me at all."

He saw the needle run through with thread, thick thread that did not match his colors, and that, he knew was sign enough that he really was never to see Coraline Jones again.

And it was that thought which drove the tremors and vain attempts at tears from his tear duct-less eyes, more than the Beldam's relentless needlessly violent stitches.

* * *

Other Wybie wonders, as the Beldam's angry footsteps shake the walls and stairs like with the force of a collapsing world, what his flesh and blood original must feel, if a little burlap copy of him could go against the command ingrained in his every thread and button.

All to protect a girl's balloon bright laughter.

He squares his shoulders as much as his slight kyphosis allows. He does not smile.

He will not be unmade with the face she gave him.


End file.
